Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 58

Normally, Ji-Cheok would have looked away in surprise, but he didn’t back down this time and he looked straight at Ji-Han. Ji-Han paid it no mind; he turned away and stood with his back to the portal.

Ji-Cheok knew that Ji-Han would do anything to save him, but sometimes Ji-Han tested him like this, as if he didn’t really care about Ji-Cheok. Soldiers stood guard around the portal, where construction was underway. They were building walls, preparing to bury mines, and hurriedly bringing all kinds of firearms. Of course, Ji-Cheok knew these were all useless. Because of the nature of the monsters, normal physical attacks didn’t do any damage to speak of.

Still, it was doing better than nothing at all. They were just there to buy thirty minutes, or even as little as ten minutes, in case a Dungeon Break happened.

“Alright, let’s check your gear before we go in. Do you have the health potions and mana potions?” Ji-Han checked each item and its condition thoroughly.

“Good. Let’s go in. Just as we practiced, I will be giving specific orders today.”

After saying this, he entered the Gate. As Ji-Han’s body disappeared through the flickering dimensional gate, other teammates entered it one by one.

Woong.

The party members were struck by dizziness as the dimension changed completely. Before they could even blink, they were standing in an unknown world.

“What the…”

There was a pile of gray bricks in front of them, and in the center of it, a column made of pure white marble stretched up to the ceiling. The column seemed to be at least thirty meters in height. Skulls were embossed on the wall, and light from unknown sources brightened the space around them. Ji-Cheok could already feel that this dungeon was no joke and understood why the difficulty level of this dungeon could not be estimated. He felt as if the atmosphere was warning him that there was only death awaiting. In this crazy world, Ji-Cheok wasn’t afraid to run toward death, like an ant that saw a block of sugar and mindlessly headed for the antlion’s pit.

As Ji-CHeok was thinking about it, a message popped up in front of him.

[You have entered a special dungeon.]

[The connection to GodTube is now cut off.]

[GodTube broadcasting is not possible.]

‘I can’t connect to GodTube?’

Ji-Cheok had heard of places like this. Dungeons have various ‘conditions,’ one of which was to make it impossible to communicate with the outside world even with a broadcasting skill like this one. That didn’t mean that the Gods weren’t watching, however.

‘So this place is like a very secret and dangerous Hunter’s tomb, isn’t it?’

If the dungeon’s purpose was to demonstrate how scary it was from the start, it had succeeded, because everyone was nervous.

As Ji-Cheok was pondering about the message that had popped up, Ji-Byeok opened her mouth.

“I think this dungeon is a temple-type dungeon.”

She took a piece of beef jerky from her waist and took a bite. It was a habit of hers that came out whenever she was nervous.

“Hm…Temple-type dungeons… From the scenery, it does look like that, but…”

“I heard temple-types are such a pain…”

Ji-Cheok agreed with everything the teammates had said. Nothing good ever came out of temple-type dungeons. The dungeon where Ji-Cheok had taken the Hunter exam was also a temple-type.

“Hyung, what are temple-type dungeons?” Mu-Cheok asked.

Ji-Cheok realized that his brother knew nothing about temple-type dungeons, since the previous dungeon had been Mu-Cheok’s first.

“Literally, the entire temple dedicated to a God has become a dungeon. The most annoying thing about this kind of dungeon is that the enemy can use some sort of divine power,” Ji-Cheok explained.

“What?”

“It means that the enemy is either a creation of a God or a priest. They are more vicious than normal monsters, and they are also very smart.”

Besides, if the God of the temple was watching, they would sometimes help out their disciple. Only those who had experienced this knew how annoying it was. This was all knowledge Ji-Cheok had learned while working as a Hunter Assistant. Actually, there had been a few times when Ji-Cheok went into a temple-type dungeon for work. The faces of Hunters’ corpses taken out from the monsters’ stomachs were…

‘...either full of fear or full of madness.’

Gods made people crazy. There was no need to go all the way back to Greek mythology to prove it—even the pastor of the big church on the corner of the street could drive people crazy if he put his mind to it.

Such was the world they lived in. Ever since monsters came out and dungeons were created, the cults were getting worse every day. The expressions of the Hunters that died in the temple-type dungeon were uncannily similar to those of people participating in a cult. That was why so many Hunters avoided temple-type dungeons. It was hard to be sane when they saw the dead bodies of Hunters like that.

‘It would be nice if this dungeon was the same level as the [The Temple of the Scaled Demon God], which was my first dungeon. But it’s unlikely, right?

If that were the case, other Hunters would have cleared it. This dungeon had a level 40 limit. Even if they used their ass to think, people could still figure out that this dungeon was twice as hard as the mushroom dungeon. However, Ji-Cheok knew that he had to be prepared for this dungeon to be three times as hard as the previous one.

“It’s something I learned while working as a Hunter Assistant in the past. Let’s say the monsters here are a bit different than normal monsters.”

Ji-Cheok had to lessen the shock to other teammates, since Ji-Byeok, Ha-Na, and Seong Kwang’s expressions were not very good.

“I guess we gotta be careful.”

“Yupp, you are right.”

While the teammates were talking, Ji-Han was looking at the team.

Ji-Han briefly introduced his abilities as [Acceleration] and [Reinforcement]. Ji-Cheok guessed the concept of Ji-Han’s abilities was to move fast and hit hard—simple, but strong. However, Ji-Cheok already knew that his abilities were more than that. Of course, he would not leak it to anyone else.

“This is the temple of [He_who_denies_death]. They are a lesser known God, but there is someone on Earth who was bestowed this God’s power,” Ji-Han said.

Everyone sighed loudly at Ji-Han’s words. It was the same for Ji-Cheok, but Mu-Cheok looked as if he didn’t understand.

“Mr. Um Mu-Cheok doesn’t know yet, so I’ll explain. Gods interfere with us humans, but they also try to interfere with the world. I don’t know if there are rules in place regarding the actions they can take, but they don’t blatantly meddle with things,” Ji-Han explained.

“I see,” Mu-Cheok said.

“Yes. So there are times when Gods try to establish a bridgehead to intervene into the world. This dungeon is precisely one such place.”

“I don’t believe it! Why do Gods do that? I’ve never heard of this before…”

Ji-Han interrupted Mu-Cheok.

“This information is top secret as far as the public is concerned. Only high-level Hunters and a few government officials know this.”

‘Basically, it’s a forced religious conversion course.’

By leaving this dungeon open, it was self-evident that this dungeon would break in the future and the undead of this temple would spread out into the world. Seeing that this one was a God of the undead, Ji-Cheok imagined the God trying to convert humans to their religion.

‘“Die and be converted! Death is Heaven! Life is Hell!” Would this be their slogan?’

Even if people said that they would convert because they didn’t want to die, the God wouldn’t just say “Okay~ hope you find peace in your new religious life!” The moment people declared that they wanted to convert, they would already find themselves wrapped in the God’s controlling tentacles.

“Let’s just say that’s true. But isn’t this also your first time in this kind of dungeon? How do you know all this?” Mu-Cheok asked.

Ji-Cheok was glad that his brother had asked first, since he was curious about the same thing.

“I have my own connections. Do you know that you can also obtain information by making deals with the Gods?” Ji-Han said.

‘Wow… This guy. Does he do business with the Gods?’

Ji-Cheok was fascinated by the fact that Ji-Han could communicate with a God.

The Awakened normally gained access to the Hunter System through natural awakening. The Hunter System included levels, abilities, and the Hunter Store. The Hunter Store was very different from the Likes Shop. Ji-Cheok knew that Hunter Store had only a limited number of things available, and Hunters couldn’t buy any skills or items that were not related to their job. In addition, the God who signed the contract could decorate the store to their liking, which was why choosing the best God to sign the contract with was very important. Ji-Cheok also heard that signing a contract with a trade-type God was advantageous because those Gods had better products than others. It was said that it was possible to communicate with the Gods using the Hunter Store, but Ji-Cheok heard that only a select few Hunters could talk to Gods.

Come to think of it, what about my Likes Shop? I gotta check that out after this.’

“I didn’t brief you outside for the sake of confidentiality. Now, since this place is our starting point and it’s temporarily safe here, I am going to fill you in right now.

Everyone nodded.

* * *

“The name of this dungeon is [Temple of the Death Deniers]. It’s a dungeon filled with undead who use divine power,” Ji-Han said.

“Holy…”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Oh…Dear Lord…”

Mu-Cheok, Ha-Na, and Seong Kwang said similar things simultaneously, while Ji-Byeok stayed silent. Ji-Cheok also didn’t say anything, but inside, he was struck dumb by the announcement.

‘What does this mean?’

Ji-Cheok had never heard of holy undead. He knew about the undead, which were essentially walking corpses like skeletons or zombies, but he had never heard of undead with divine power. On the contrary, Ji-Cheok had learned that the only weakness of the undead was divine power, but if these undead were actually able to use the only thing they were supposed to be weak against… Ji-Cheok wondered how they could be killed.

“It may be hard to believe, but some divine beings can use the power of death. Their divine power is also displayed when they become undead. That is why all those who entered this dungeon died,” Ji-Han said.

“They are that much stronger,” Ji-Byeok said.

Ji-Han nodded lightly.

“That’s right. There are going to be at least three types of undead in this dungeon, the Undead Holy Knight, the Undead Priest, and the Undead Temple Soldier. The Undead Temple Soldiers use divine power, but they can’t perform miracles,” Ji-Han said.

“I think I understand. The Undead Holy Knights have the power of a holy knight. And Undead Priests are just priests.”

“That is correct, Mr. Seong Kwang. Of course, there are few special characteristics about them, so please listen carefully from now on.”

‘Wow… So it’s going to be like having a party with corpses in this cultist temple.’

Ji-Cheok heard that the monsters killed a lot of Hunters, but he didn’t know the monsters would be this strong.

“This dungeon usually consists of seven—”

As Ji-Han was going to continue with his briefing, a voice resounded from afar. It was a dreary and grotesque voice, and it made Ji-Cheok’s hair stand on end.

[Death…]

[Peace…]

Ji-Cheok felt like it was the end of the world. It sounded as if an angel of death came down and sang a trot song. To these undead monsters, death was the only way of religious conversion. Rather than trying to kill the Hunters, these monsters were attacking with the mindset of evangelizing the Hunters.

‘What an amazing way to preach to us.’

Ji-Han frowned and turned his head toward the passage. At the end of the darkness, on the other side of the passage, a tiny light was getting closer and stronger.

A bright light finally consumed the darkness, but the things beneath the light were not something to be welcomed.

1. Also known as ppongjjak, it’s basically a pre-K-Pop form of Korean popular music. Check this out for reference: